A Year in the Life of the Order
by relativelybabybass21
Summary: A series of scenes showing what members of the Order of the Phoenix are up to in the fifth book. Starts when Harry and Co. get on the Hogwarts Express and ends with the Ministry's declaration of war against Voldemort.


**A Year In the Life of the Order**

 **September**

Alastor Moody appeared in a side street in the village of Hogsmeade with a crack. Witches and wizards along the street looked around suspiciously for a few seconds, looking for the source of the noise, but Moody was hidden underneath his spare invisibility cloak. Moody wanted to start screaming at them in what his imposter's former students would have recognized as his "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" speech. He held in his annoyance, however, as he was determined to finish his mission for the Order of the Phoenix. After a moment more, Moody started making his way towards the Hogwarts grounds a short distance from the village.

Soon, he found himself in Dumbledore's office. The portraits of the former headmasters and headmistresses were all awake and rushing around, eager for the start of the new school year and the stories to come about the students old and new from Professor Dumbledore. Fawkes on his golden stand looked distinctly disgruntled by the constant chatter and movement of the portraits upon Moody's arrival, who indeed often saw them feigning sleep until called upon by the headmaster. Dumbledore himself stood with his back to Moody, peering into his Pensieve. Moody cleared his throat. The portraits fell silent, and Dumbledore continued facing away from him.

"Potter, the Weasleys, and Granger all made it on the train. Sirius decided to blow his cover by coming along, and Podmore failed to show up again." Moody reported without preamble, for he was used to the Auror department's method of succinctly passing on information. Dumbledore finally turned around with a look of sadness mixed with what Moody must be mistaking for anxiety.

"Excellent work, Alastor, as usual. I shall enquire into Sturgis' whereabouts, and unfortunately, one can hardly blame Sirius for wanting to leave the house." Dumbledore sat at his desk, and began fiddling with one of the silver instruments placed upon it absentmindedly. Moody grumbled again at the thought of Podmore's and Sirius' insubordination, before another thought seized upon his brain.

"Albus, who is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year? Severus hasn't been over the moon at Order meetings, so it can't be him."

"Ah. The answer to that question will not improve your mood, I'm afraid. Cornelius has seen fit to fill the post himself, at my inability to find yet another replacement teacher," Dumbledore replied calmly.

"Well, who is it, then? Another auror? That wouldn't be a bad thing, actually, get some real-world experience in here…" Moody mused. Dumbledore gave him a sad sort of smile.

"No. In fact, I'm afraid Cornelius has decided I will try to make an army of sorts out of the children, so we won't be getting anyone truly effective. No, the person filling the post is none other than Dolores Umbridge."

Moody could not form words for a moment, so angry was he at this announcement.

"That woman, a teacher? And I thought SNAPE was terrible with children," Moody finally spat out after a minute or two.

"Severus is a perfectly fine teacher," Dumbledore corrected. "I will admit, however, some apprehension about the Dolores situation. Fortunately, Cornelius only has so much control over the headmaster of Hogwarts, and none over me specifically."

Moody begrudgingly conceded him the point, before leaving for his shift on guard duty outside the Department of Mysteries.

 **October**

Remus Lupin quietly entered the front door of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. An emergency Order meeting had been called, which filled him with apprehension. The last time an emergency meeting had been called, Harry had been attacked by dementors. The time before that, Voldemort had just returned from the dead, or whatever it was he had been after attacking Harry as a small child.

The door behind him opened again. Tonks entered, tripping over the doorstep. He caught her fall, smiling.

"Try not to knock over the umbrella stand this time, will you? I'm called a half breed by the whole world, don't need a painting of a dead woman telling me too." Lupin normally didn't joke about his condition, but he found it easy to talk to Tonks. She grinned, put her finger over her mouth to let him know she would be quiet, and he led the way to the kitchen.

Molly already had dinner going, if the smells of the room were any indication. Arthur, Kingsley, Mundungus, and Mad-Eye were already sitting at the table in the middle of the room. Lupin and Tonks took their own spots at the table across from each other. Lupin turned to say hello to Molly as Sirius, Dumbledore, and Snape entered the room.

"Professor!" Molly Weasley started and almost dropped the soup spoon into the pot she was stirring. "Sit down, sit down...dinner's almost ready!"

"Thank you, Molly, but I'm afraid Severus and I must decline. There is a bit of a situation going on at the school."

"We've already heard about that awful Umbridge woman," Sirius informed him dejectedly. Lupin frowned. He had hoped his childhood friend wouldn't be so upset that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had asked him to not come for their Hogsmeade visit.

"That is not the situation I was referring to, Sirius." Dumbledore gave Sirius a kind look, then turned to Mundungus. "Why don't you tell us about the Hogsmeade trip today, Mr. Fletcher?"

Sirius tensed next to Lupin, but didn't speak.

"Well, Harry took a bit of a trip to the Hog's Head this afternoon-"

"That can't be true, Harry wouldn't go to that dirty, criminal infested establishment!" Molly interrupted.

"That dirty, criminal infested establishment happens to be the business and home of my brother Aberforth," Dumbledore commented with a twinkle in his eye.

"Oh, I meant no offense, Professor!" Molly blushed, then went back to her cooking.

"Well, he did! And every single one of your children at that school, and the Granger girl, and whole load of all their little friends."

Molly seethed silently at the news that her children had gone with Harry into such a place, and Lupin could only imagine the Howler that would follow the meeting's conclusion. He could also tell by the look on her face that she had taken the twins as the real culprits of the situation.

"And why did all those kids go to the Hog's Head instead of the Three Broomsticks?" Kingsley asked mildly.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? They are up to no good, and somebody decided that going off the beaten track was the way to go. Mistakenly, of course, no one would have paid attention to them going somewhere they were expected to be, but everyone would notice them going somewhere new," Moody explained succinctly.

"Yeah, that's about what the Granger girl said, before she announced they were forming a secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group to protect themselves from You-Know Who." Mundungus grinned as the room erupted with chaos.

"They can't do that-they'll get expelled-" Molly began what surely would become a tirade of angry mother.

"Excellent, putting that Umbridge woman in her place, I see-" Sirius grinned at Lupin for the first time that afternoon. Lupin, against his better judgement, grinned back.

"Kinda makes you wish you were back at Hogwarts, fighting back in a more tangible way, doesn't it?" Tonks asked Sirius and Lupin across the table with her own huge grin.

"About time those Hogwarts students got some practical experience, I reckon," Moody said to no one in particular, beady black eye raised to the ceiling as the electric blue one rolled around excitedly.

"Enough." Dumbledore's voice was quiet, but so was the room after the word was spoken.

"I do not plan to interfere with Miss Granger's plan to allow Mr. Potter to teach his peers. I cannot say the same for Professor Umbridge, however. I called this meeting to start discussing plans for after my removal from the post of headmaster, which Professor Umbridge is slowly but surely heading for, on the orders of the Minister, no doubt."

More uproar followed this announcement. Lupin prepared himself for a long night of arguing and negotiation, but felt that it was worth it to do so next to the newly cheerful Sirius and across from Tonks.

 **November**

Rubeus Hagrid was tired and cold in a way he hadn't been since his stay in Azkaban. He and his brother had been exposed to the elements for months. While Hagrid was used to spending much time outside, as the Hogwart's gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor, he also was used to finishing out his daily activities with a roaring fire in his own hut. Making even small fires while traveling with his brother was impossible. Since they had made it back to Britain, Hagrid must be even more careful to not be detected. Not being noticed had never been one of Hagrid's strengths, even he knew that. But he was taking no risks, with his newfound brother at stake.

Resolving once more to protect his little brother at all costs, Hagrid remembered he needed to destroy Grawp's tracks in the snow. This was becoming the most difficult leg of the journey, simply because of the tediousness of erasing every single giant footprint in the snow. His own were passable as fully human, compared to the size of a human snowshoe (his father had in fact once taken to wearing them over the summer holidays, when the kids at school at made fun of his loud steps, as an act of solidarity). Grawp impatiently waited, and tried to take a swipe at him. "No, Grawpy, that hurts. Remember? I had to leave you so that I could go get a nice steak to make it better?" Grawp had enjoyed the look of the bright green dragon steak when Hagrid had showed it to him, and was angry that he was not allowed to eat it. Or, at least, that's what Hagrid figured.

Hagrid had always had a keen sense of direction, simply because of his love of being outdoors. He also knew the grounds about Hogwarts better than anyone other than the centaurs and maybe a few of Aragog's larger and more mobile children. He knew they were coming up on the forest.

He was ready to be home. He wouldn't take back the journey for anything- his brother needed to be protected from those bullies. But he was also ready to see Fang, start sending letters to Olympe, and to check on Harry, Hermione, and Ron. He was ready to take back over his class, and had been planning lessons while on the move. He had decided somewhere in France it was time that the fifth years see (or not see, hopefully) thestrals.

Hagrid hoped nothing in the Forbidden Forest would try to bully his baby brother like his own kind did. He had the sneaking suspicion that the centaurs were going to throw a fit, they hated change more than anything else.

Something caught his eye. A flash of movement, dark among the dark trees. He frowned. Could it be a Death Eater? No, they would have shown themselves by now… He pushed ahead. Another flash. His head whipped to the left, just in time to see one of Aragog's sons or daughters. He grinned widely, turned to Grawp, and said, "Grawpy! We're almost home!"

 **December**

Arthur Weasley was bored. It was just before Christmas. The children had been gone too long, and he had spent too many nights already in the Department of Mysteries Corridor. Earlier that day during a break at work, he had asked around for riddles to contemplate that night. He had solved all of them in the first hour or so of his shift, and now was debating whether he could get away with a little bit of pacing to keep himself awake. He now considered his latest projects, back at the Burrow. He was trying to figure out how Electricity worked. He had bought some Batteries at a Muggle shop, but now didn't have a clue what to do with them. For now, he was magically gluing them to various objects to see what would happen. So far, he hadn't managed to create anything but a large mess.

He really should clean his workroom up. Oh, and he needed to finish the Christmas shopping for Molly, she was behind on knitting all of the Christmas sweaters, and he had said weeks ago he would help and had forgotten until now. He needed to finish paperwork on the Biting-Paper-Clip case, and figure out exactly how a Paper-Clip worked in the first place. Maybe he should stick one into one of his Plugs, and glue a Battery onto it for good measure. He needed to stay awake right now, that's what he needed to do. But he was so tired, he was always the one people called when they needed out of night duty and had, therefore, done more than his fair share of shifts over the past several months. He yawned widely. He leaned back against the cool wall, and decided to close his eyes just for a moment. He slid to the floor as he fell asleep, chin on his chest.

He started at the sound of something scraping along the floor. He might have missed it, if he hadn't been shocked back awake by the sudden change in the environment. He frowned. He hadn't heard the lift, and he couldn't see anyone.

Then came the hiss. He looked up and down the corridor wildly, and still saw nothing. He looked down as the scraping noise got closer and he was better able to pinpoint it. His heart seemed to come to a stop at the sight of a giant snake. It hissed again. It couldn't see him, could it? He was under an Invisibility Cloak. Could animals see through them?

He became fairly certain it could, as it started to look back and forth between him and the door to the Department of Mysteries. His heart sank. This must be You-Know-Who's pet snake, Nagini. He stood up quickly. He could not allow the snake in anymore than he could allow a Death Eater or You-Know-Who himself in. He pulled out his wand.

The snake hissed one last time as he frantically thought of a spell. He didn't remember much but pain after that.

 **January**

Nymphadora Tonks turned to Remus after they exited the Knight Bus back in London. After dropping off all the Hogwarts kids, she had relaxed, while he had not. She didn't blame him. He got wary looks no matter where he went in the wizarding world, even the meeting room of the Order of the Phoenix. She suspected that Snape's hate of Remus had less to do with the fact that he was a werewolf, however, and more to do with some unspoken conflict they'd had. He gave the exact same look to Sirius that he did to Remus, after all, and from what she understood the two of them had been thick as thieves back in their Hogwarts days.

It took stepping onto the Muggle street and the Knight Bus whisking itself away for Remus to stop looking on guard. She liked the look of him much better that way. It made him look more his age, than the old man he pretended to be. She had specifically requested to be with him on the mission today, which had made Dumbledore raise a single eyebrow but not ask any questions.

"So," she said brightly. "Any exciting plans for the evening?"

He allowed her a small smile. "I've got a new book with my name on it, if you consider that exciting."

"Depends. What kind of book is it? That monster book Hagrid assigned is pretty exciting." She smiled at the memory of Ginny opening it to scare her last week. She had made the youngest Weasley angry, but outside of Hogwarts her only choices for retaliation were the Muggle ways and with enchanted objects, and thankfully not any of the curses Harry had undoubtedly been teaching her.

"I'm afraid my book doesn't attempt to mimic its subject. Probably a good thing, since it is about hippogriffs. I'm trying to help Sirius take care of Buckbeak, the poor thing is getting tired of being cooped up in his room all day." Remus frowned darkly. She wondered how much he emphasized with Sirius and Buckbeak, cooped up in the house and cut off from the rest of society and flying free.

Tonks bit her lip. She had been wanting to spend more time with Remus for a while now. She had strange feelings for him that she wasn't sure how to identify, but she needed to figure them out. She was an Auror, after all, and what kind of Auror would she be if she couldn't even understand herself? And she seemed to keep wanting to understand him, too, which was just as confusing. She didn't really make a decision to speak so much as she couldn't keep the next question in anymore.

"Maybe you could bring the book with you over to the Burrow tonight? Molly invited me over, doesn't want to go back to cooking for two just yet… I hear the Weasleys have a few Wizard's Chess sets we could use, too, if you don't want to share your book, or she always makes those sweaters, maybe she'd teach us how to knit, or Arthur could show us his plug collection-"

"Or maybe, we could go get coffee in this nice Muggle shop I know by ourselves tomorrow," Remus interrupted her with a smile.

Her eyes widened. "We could. I mean, we should. I mean, only if you want to, I know you are probably busy and all-"

"I'll meet you outside your flat tomorrow morning." He was still smilingly as he walked away from her. She was left standing in the middle of the sidewalk, unable to think clearly.

Did she have a date planned with Remus Lupin?

 **February**

Sirius Black had never really enjoyed spending time at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. In fact, he had thought he despised living it it when his parents were still alive and he was still a Hogwarts student. He realized now that his teenage self had no idea what it meant to despise the house. His adult self couldn't escape to James' parents' house. It wasn't going back to another year of classes and girlfriends and his friends having adventures every full moon. After months of living in what felt like a nightmare featuring his childhood, he was starting to wonder if perhaps Azkaban was really so bad of an alternative. The dementors were terrible, but his own mind wasn't producing much better thoughts and images. And besides, the dementors were only going to guard the prison as long as Voldemort stayed in hiding, and Sirius had a suspicion that he would be showing himself soon. Voldemort was notoriously impatient, and he wouldn't like hiding anymore than Sirius did. Sirius snorted at the idea that he would have something in common with the most Dark wizard of the age.

Sirius was in the middle of yet another firewhiskey when he heard the door to the kitchen open. He grimaced, he had no real interest in company right now.

"Sirius?" The intruder was Moony. Of course he had to show up, to mock Sirius that his best friend got to help the Order with more than providing a meeting place.

"What?" The word came out more hostile than Sirius had intended, but he didn't necessarily regret his tone.

"I brought you something." Moony came around the other side of the table to sit across from him, and tossed a magazine at him.

"The Quibbler? Really?" Sirius looked up at Moony incredulously.

"Keep reading." It took only another glance for Sirius to realize that there was an article about Harry. He quickly flipped to it, and skimmed it.

"He told someone his story?" Sirius was in shock as he read through his godson's account of the night Voldemort had returned. Sirius had already heard the details, the night Harry had witnessed his parent's murderer come back to life and his classmate die.

"He told _Rita Skeeter_ his story." Moony pushed the article back to the first page and pointed at the author of the interview. Sirius frowned.

"Why would he do that? Better yet, why would she write it the exact way he told it to Dumbledore and I last summer?"

"Why," Moony was quiet suddenly, "do I get the feeling that you haven't put anything but firewhiskey into your system since the last time Molly fed you?"

"I eat just fine." Sirius brushed off the comment. "What do you think that Umbridge woman is doing to Harry in retribution right now?"

"I don't know. Something horrible, no doubt." Moony looked like he wanted to steer the conversation back to his original question, but something in Sirius' face was stopping him.

"Well, I'm proud of him. Standing up for what he knows is true. Not giving into the peer pressure of the wizarding world, and all that." Sirius did in fact feel a rush of pride for his godson, and an equally powerful pang of sadness for James. Sirius was starting to believe Molly might be right when she accused Sirius of not being able to tell the two Potters apart. Not that he was doing that great of thinking of anything but his misery these days anyway.

"I thought you might be." Moony gave him a sad smile. "I promised Tonks I'd meet her for dinner. Sorry to leave you so soon, make yourself some real food for me." Sirius' reminiscence over his dead best friend was instantly replaced by jealousy at Moony's ability to leave the house, to go on a date, to be happy.

 **March**

Severus Snape was in a mood. At the start of the year, Snape really hadn't minded Dolores all that much. She was the only other teacher that had truly seemed to see through Potter's hero complex into his arrogance. He was nervous, of course, about the fact she wasn't really teaching her subject with the Dark Lord on the loose, but Potter seemed to have rounded up most of those who would be foolhardy enough to try their hand against a Death Eater and, according to Dumbledore, had actually been successful teaching his classmates practical magic. It only made Snape loath Potter more that the fifteen year old was closer to the job he coveted than Snape himself.

But it wasn't just Potter that had Snape frustrated these days. The school was falling to pieces without Dumbledore. Dolores was failing to keep the students in line, and this was the main cause of Snape's frustration that night. Snape was a man who commanded respect, and Dolores simply could not do the same. Fortunately, she at least trusted Snape more than any other teacher to walk about without an escort. He used this power to exit the Hogwart's grounds, into the village of Hogsmeade, and Apparate to the secure location Dumbledore was currently staying at.

"Severus, welcome." Dumbledore was sitting at a table, deep in thought, when Snape appeared before him. "What is happening at the school?"

"The children are in mutiny, that's what. Dolores has no control!" He didn't bother to hide his anger, Dumbledore saw it whether he forced himself to stay calm or not.

"I see. Well, the disruption to their education will easily be fixed upon my return to Hogwarts." Dumbledore's self assured tone made Snape raise an eyebrow.

"You know when that will be?" Snape asked.

"Not at the present. You see, after years and years, that time becomes shorter and shorter. I have things to keep me occupied, for the moment."

Snape didn't bother asking what exactly was keeping the headmaster occupied. He had known Dumbledore long enough to know he would never get a straight answer.

"Now. How are Occlumency lessons going?"

"Poorly." Snape lied through his teeth, not informing Dumbledore that he himself had called off the lessons. Snape knew Dumbledore would talk him back into giving Potter a second chance if he admitted he had thrown the boy out of his classroom, and Snape had no interest in allowing him to go looking through Snape's memories any more than he already had.

"How so?" Dumbledore pushed.

"Potter simply doesn't show an interest in building up his defenses." This wasn't a lie, months had gone by before he had ended the lessons, and Potter had made no improvement over that time in disciplining his mind.

"You must make him see the importance!" Dumbledore's voice was full of concern and anxiety. Snape started at the emotion of it.

"I've tried." Again, not a lie, because of the past tense. Dumbledore sighed.

"Well, I think you had better get back to the castle, then, before Dolores realizes you are missing from the walls." Snape eagerly left after his dismissal, but found himself immediately disheartened when he thought ahead to the next day of student insurrection against the "headmistress".

 **April**

Molly Weasley had been having a rough year. Between the stress of You-Know-Who lurking, waiting to kill everyone she loved, Arthur's attack, Order meetings and guard duty, her nerves were stretched thin. Dumbledore had even left Hogwarts, stripping her children and Harry of one more protection. She was currently channeling her stress into getting some cleaning done, though the Burrow hardly needed any cleaning since she had done the same thing a few days previous. Her efforts were interrupted by a loud knocking on the door. Gripping her wand tighter, she slowly opened the door to the Burrow to see two of her sons standing on her doorstep. Fred and George were holding their broomsticks (which she had understood to be locked away in that awful Umbridge woman's office) and grinning at her sheepishly. Her sons couldn't be _here_. They were supposed to be at school, finishing their N.E.W.T.s (she did hope they would earn more of those than O.W.L.s, but she didn't have high expectations after their behavior all through their Hogwarts career) and being _safe_.

"Hi, Mum," Fred said quietly.

"We've left school," George continued unnecessarily as Molly continued to stare at them.

"We aren't going back." Fred's voice was hard, and Molly knew in that moment that for the first time in their lives she wouldn't be able to force the twins to do what she knew was best for them. That being said, she decided she was still perfectly entitled to worry as much as she wanted about them.

"What exactly do you plan on doing with your lives?" Molly's voice was shriller than she had intended when she finally collected herself enough to speak.

"To open a joke shop, Mum. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."

"We've discussed this! That is not an actual career path!" Molly's voice continued to rise in volume, but Fred and George didn't flinch.

"George and I already have premises in Diagon Alley. We have products invented, and all we need is a little time away from Hogwarts to build up inventory. Our products have been a hit all year with the younger Hogwarts students-"

"You've been selling your products to _children_?"

"They _are_ the target audience," George informed her. "We've put a lot of time and

effort into this, and we are ready to start our own business. It may not be what you think of as a typical business venture, but it's what works for us."

She started staring at her sons again. For the first time, she realized how grown up they looked. She took a deep breath. It was time to let them go.

"Okay." Fred and George looked at each other in shock. "You're of age, you can do what you want. I can't stop you anymore. I do wish you had finished school-" She stopped mid sentence as a thought seized her and filled her with horror. "Where did the two of you get money to start a joke shop? Because if you have been dealing with Mundungus, I revoke everything I just said!"

"No, it wasn't Mundungus." The twins looked at each other, seemed to come to a decision, and Fred answered. "Harry gave us his Triwizard Tournament winnings. We tried to refuse them, but he insisted. We think he didn't want the reminder of what the winnings actually cost him. Or, at least, that's what Angelina translated for us."

Molly started crying then, thinking now not only about the future of the twins in front of her but how much pain Harry had already gone through. Fred and George hugged her tightly as she let go of two more of her children to the real world.

 **May**

Albus Dumbledore was on a mission. While he was temporarily barred from his post as headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he might as well be productive. For years now, Albus had been trying to puzzle out Tom Riddle's past, and he was so close to discovering the answer of how to defeat him. He had a strong hunch about what Tom had done, the horrors, the dark magic- but he had no solid proof yet.

Harry's connection to Tom had cemented the idea of what Tom had done to protect himself from death in Albus' mind. There was no other way that Tom could have peered out at him from Harry's eyes, no way for Harry to watch Death Eaters be tortured as if he was the one doing it, no way that Harry could have known Nagini's whereabouts that night with Arthur…

He should have told Harry long before now, about the prophecy. But he couldn't tell the poor boy what he suspected Harry was...That he would have to die for Tom Riddle to fall…No child needed to be told that. No, telling Harry could wait, just a while longer...

Albus was surrounded by papers and vials full of memories. Most of them pertained to Tom Riddle, or his later pseudonym Voldemort. The rest were books on the darkest of magics...the How-To guides, so to speak, on how to split your soul.

Albus suspected Tom had split his soul into seven. But he needed to know, now, what he would have used as the vessel for the Horcruxes…

He picked up a vial at random. He read the note on the side, the description of the memory contained within. With a start, he realized he hadn't looked at this particular memory since he first came across it. He stood up, walked to his Pensieve, and watched Tom Riddle steal Morfin Gaunt's wand, and, he realized now, his ring. The family ring. Could Voldemort have chosen objects with significance to him? Could he have turned this ring into a Horcrux? Where could he have hidden it again? Perhaps at the same place he found it...if he had taken an object with significance, he would have hid it in a place of significance…

Albus resolved to find the Gaunt home and the ring, and to find out once and for all what he, Harry, and the wizarding world were truly dealing with.

 **June**

Kingsley Shacklebolt sat down in his office chair. Sirius' many faces stared back at him. Knowing as he did that Sirius was dead, and with his memories still full of a fight with Death Eaters and Harry's response to his godfather's death, Kingsley thought he might be sick. He thought about tearing all of his "leads" down. The thought made him feel worse, almost as if dismantling the walls would kill Sirius a second time. _Don't be ridiculous_ , Kingsley told himself. _You can only kill a man once, and Bellatrix Lestrange beat you to it last night_.

Kingsley was distracted from his own thoughts by a knock on the doorframe.

"Minister!" Kingsley stood quickly as he saw who had knocked.

"Kingsley." Fudge looked drained, a shell of the man he had been just hours previously.

"What brings you here?" Kingsley asked.

"I hear Sirius Black is dead." Kingsley tried and failed to not flinch. Fudge didn't seem to notice his reaction.

"That he is, sir. I watched it happen." Fudge nodded distractedly.

"Fine. I'd like to change your assignment, due to recent developments. It seems that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned. I'd like you to track him down now." Fudge had turned on his heel and left the office before Kingsley could react. Before Kingsley could get angry that the Minister had been ignoring this fact the entire year. Before he could let his emotions over Sirius' death go.

He picked out the picture of Sirius at James and Lily's wedding from the wall, the one in which he looked the most alive. He placed it on his desk, then Vanished the rest. He sat again at his desk, propped up the photo, then started his investigation into the whereabouts of Voldemort, almost exactly a year after his return to power.


End file.
